http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/China-calls-for-joint-efforts-after-Indias-Mars-mission/articleshow/25271361.cmsBeen kind of in absentia of late, even missing the call out regarding the asteroid discovery weeks back (It got downgraded to non-threat with further NASA data.)
Anyways, I by happenstance clicked on that particular article about that particular space program on my Google New feed. Pure luck. That it would be the Times of India, versus any of a million wester news orgs. Partly my cause of posting were the comments on there - jesus, look at that. I'm definitely somewhat shocked for a few reasons - crazy negative Indian views of China. Craaaazy.
But also, more importantly, the pride in space. It warms my heart, or cockles, or whatever the case may be. Here, a nation crazy poor, spending (most say wasting) money in space. And its people couldn't be happier or more proud. Hell yeah!
The West, us, we could learn something here. If I see one more space article lamenting NASA's destruction via zero budget, and see idiots on farms say 'Why we go puttin' that money in space? We done need that money here! I need my guvermint checks!' A - Money spent on space is spent constructing and supporting missions. It goes to humans, on earth, for labor, resources and the like. There's a reason Reps from NASA districts are NASA crazy - NASA stimulates local economies by creating jobs and funnelling insane money for $10k toilet seats. Space creates jobs and wealth. Period.
But more importantly, the West has become so sickeningly ego-centric and entitled - space is freaking insane. It is... impossible. To put men in space? To send our technology billions of miles, have it land on foreign worlds - and work?!? Every mission to space is an accomplishment worthy of worship - billions of years of life on this world, thousands of humans, and we, the first, to leave our world. It should be one of the primary driving forces for any nation, and the world as one, to explore and expand into space. It's not wastes of money, it's 'Holy crap, we did that? We're awesome!'
That we don't, that people don't care, or worse, oppose it, shows a critical flaw of our cultures or present day society. Everything in human history has led to us exploring space - it is a major hallmark of any species. Each mission is a miracle. Worse, the returns from these missions answer the most vital, important questions - how are we here, how is anything, and how does everything exist and work? Like, Kepler? Dead. There's crap all for missions coming to search for exoplanets, and alien life. One NASA project aimed at 2018 launch, and CHEOPS from ESA. That. Is. It. No other space exo-planet missions. We discover the very first planets elsewhere in the mid-90s, launch one mission (Kepler), and call it a day. Pathetic.
James Webb? A f****ing waste of $10 billion. Two decades. It won't launch until 2020 (2018 officially, guaranteed not til 2020-22.) For like a 6m scope in infrared? ESA has a 39 meter ground scope, first light 2020, for $1 billion. A proposed 100 meter ground scope, to cost about $2 billion, canceled as too expensive. crap, we should have an array of interferometers in space (bunch of scopes, combine their data digitally to make one big one.) Nothing. We sure as hell should be on Mars and the Moon. They did it in less than a decade. In 1969. Think about that. They didn't even have Walkman's yet - vinyl goddamn discs for music. And they walked on the moon a decade after first launching something, anything, into space. What we could do now? With our tech? Never mind the experience of already having been there, done that! And we haven't set foot on the moon in
over forty years!!!
Titan, Europa, all very well could have life, living now, in our solar system. And not one mission to answer. Yesterday, news that there're probably billions of Earths, habitable rocky worlds,
in our galaxyalone, and SETI struggles with funding to find other sentient, advanced species? If we found just one, one single other, it's game over - the technology and knowledge we'd gain with contact, even messages taking years to get a reply, would solve all our problems, immortality, answers to everything, etc. But we can't even be bothered with that.
So another crazy long rant, but the point is, I'm glad some folks somewhere today are excited and proud of space exploration. A shame it isn't us, or the West, and we'll pay the price and lose big time when China and India are colonizing the Moon and Mars and we're shutting our government down again. But at least someone's doing it. The most exciting part is the conflict - No USSR, no Apollo. China and India could be just what the doctor ordered to have two nations ignore spending trillions to explore space. One nation, absent a race, leads to stagnation, as we see today with NASA.
